ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
There is some other news going on in the world. For instance, this weekend marks 50 years since movies changed forever. My colleague Scott Detrow recently spoke with two NPR film lovers about a certain splashy summer film.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Before you see it, one sound tells you it's coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "MAIN TITLE")
DETROW: But on June 20, 1975, when it was released, nobody knew that music yet. Nobody could predict the phenomenon that Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" would become.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JAWS")
ROBERT SHAW: (As Quint) You're going to need a bigger boat.
DETROW: The film would help usher in a new era of Hollywood filmmaking, make composer John Williams a household name and put Spielberg on the path to becoming the most successful filmmaker of all time. Fifty years later, we are revisiting this classic, all the ways it changed the movies and the lessons - both good and bad - that the movies took from it. Joining me now is NPR film critic Bob Mondello, and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers, who spearheads these weekly movie talks. Hey, guys.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Hey.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: So let's talk "Jaws." Bob...
MONDELLO: Yeah.
RIVERS: Yep.
DETROW: ...I'll start with you...
MONDELLO: (Laughter).
RIVERS: Yeah.
DETROW: ...Because you, among the three of us, have the unique experience - you saw "Jaws" in theaters when it came out.
MONDELLO: On the first day.
DETROW: On the first day?
MONDELLO: I was in the movie business at the time. I was a publicist. And we had it, but we didn't have it in a theater near me, so I went to somebody else's theater, paid to see it. I remember it's the only time I've ever seen a theater fill up from the front. The first row was full almost immediately, then the second and then the third. Everybody wanted to get splashed.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: I don't know. But it was amazing. It was thrilling to see it with an audience. Tell - please tell me that you both seen it with a crowd, right?
RIVERS: Never.
MONDELLO: No, really?
RIVERS: The biggest crowd was just me and my girlfriend.
MONDELLO: Oh, no.
RIVERS: That was my biggest - I know.
DETROW: Crowd...
RIVERS: Deprived. I know.
MONDELLO: It's an amazing audience picture (laughter).
RIVERS: Yeah.
MONDELLO: It's just great.
RIVERS: I came to "Jaws" as it being this important movie. You look back at those contemporary reviews, calling it exhilarating and, you know, a thrill ride and so scary. I kind of approached it like a work of art. I put "Jaws" in the same category, in my head, as something like "The Godfather" or...
MONDELLO: Ah.
RIVERS: ..."Maltese Falcon," "Citizen Kane." It's like, this movie is going to teach you how to make a movie. This is film grammar 101 for modern filmmaking. And I think rewatching it last night, that's kind of how I look at it today. It's just like, if you want to know what camera techniques that can help heighten suspense, if you want to know how to provide details for the characters without making it seem like exposition, this is just like connoisseur for all that.
MONDELLO: That's not wrong. I mean, although he was inventing it as he went.
RIVERS: Oh, yeah.
MONDELLO: He was a very inexperienced guy, and the craziness of trying to film on the ocean - which apparently had never been done before. I mean...
RIVERS: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Don't you just assume that "Mutiny On The Bounty" - they must have been on an ocean? But those were all done in big...
RIVERS: Studio tanks. Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Tanks, right? And he wanted to shoot on the ocean, had not realized what weather would do (laughter), and now they're like...
DETROW: I think there are waves in the ocean.
(LAUGHTER)
DETROW: Bob, like, what else do you think, like, absolutely is perfectly done in this movie in a way that was a template for other movies?
MONDELLO: Well, the absence of the shark is the big thing. For the first hour, you don't really see the shark. Am I right? You've just seen this recently.
RIVERS: No. It's...
MONDELLO: I have not.
RIVERS: It's mostly through suggestion, through, like, a broken pier that, like...
MONDELLO: Right.
RIVERS: ...Goes out to sea but turns around and starts...
MONDELLO: (Laughter).
RIVERS: ...Chasing the guy.
MONDELLO: Or a fin, right?
RIVERS: Or - yeah, or a fin.
MONDELLO: Maybe you see a fin.
RIVERS: And most of it is John Williams' iconic score working, you know? Like, the music personifies the shark.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "MAIN TITLE")
RIVERS: I think now, when I rewatch it, it's not even the shark or the shark sequences that I love, you know? It's really the characters. You know, when Robert Shaw as Quint being introduced, you know, with the nails going down the chalk board.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JAWS")
SHAW: (As Quint) Y'all know me. You know how I earn a living.
RIVERS: It's Richard Dreyfuss' character Hooper and that wonderful laugh of his or him just kind of explaining the stakes.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JAWS")
RICHARD DREYFUSS: (As Hooper) I pulled a tooth the size of a shot glass out of the wrecked hull of a boat out there, and it was the tooth of a great white. It was Ben Gardner's...
RIVERS: And in comparison to all, you know, the countless offspring that "Jaws" has spawned.
DETROW: Yeah, which we'll talk about it in a moment.
RIVERS: Yeah, but it's really the characters that bring me back all the time. It's the character details.
DETROW: Let's just talk of the economics of movies and how much this changed things. This - "Jaws" becomes the first movie to hit $100 million at the box office. How did that compare to what came before it?
MONDELLO: It's hard to explain how big a movie is by looking at box office because the price of tickets changes, and it's just a frustration. I think attendance is a better way to do it. The No. 1 and No. 2 pictures, most years, play to between 40 and 60 million people in the U.S. Occasional films are bigger. Two years before "Jaws," "The Exorcist" played to 109 million people, I think.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE EXORCIST")
RON FABER: (As character) Keep away. The sow is mine.
MONDELLO: But it opened at Christmas and took a long time to play to that many people. You look at "Titanic," played to 104 million. "Avengers: Endgame" played to 93 million. Those are really big. But "Jaws" opened in what was then considered an absolute dead zone in the summer and played to 126 million people. Nothing that's opened...
RIVERS: Can even compare. Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Since then has been like this.
RIVERS: And I think, also, if I had to theorize a little bit, I think it's just kind of just a situation of a perfect kind of coalescence of factors. You know, you had, I think, at this time where there was a youth spending power, you know? - there were kids and teens that could go to the movies on their own. Also the studio behind "Jaws" launched this huge marketing campaign right when, like, TV marketing was really popping off, blitzing your TV screens and also on the radio. They had merchandise tie-ins at movie theaters.
And I think, also, you know, taking stock of the cultural climate, this movie's coming out soon after the fall of Saigon, coming in the wake of Watergate, in the wake of the Kent State killings. And I think there's this kind of just exhaustion. And you think about some of these past movies like "Chinatown" or "The Godfather," "The Exorcist," these kind of movies that are kind of cynical about America. And here's "Jaws" that, while it does sneak in cynicism, is just all about an escape. You want to be on vacation.
DETROW: Some people are eaten by a shark.
RIVERS: Some people are eaten by sharks...
DETROW: I just want to say.
RIVERS: ...But it's all in good fun.
MONDELLO: It's the mayor - the mayor is the bad guy, right? I mean, and...
RIVERS: The mayor is the bad guy, yeah.
MONDELLO: And yeah, no, you're right. That's a really interesting observation.
DETROW: The mayor is such a goofy character.
RIVERS: But so poignant, you know? You establish this character who is saying, one or two people are going to die, but our economy is at stake.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JAWS")
MURRAY HAMILTON: (As Mayor Vaughn) Now, if you fellows are concerned about the beaches, you do whatever you have to make them safe. But those beaches will be open for this weekend.
RIVERS: I think there's a reason why "Jaws" was watched often during COVID. I think a lot of our politicians were making similar calculations...
MONDELLO: Ooh.
DETROW: Ooh.
RIVERS: ...As the mayor in "Jaws" was.
MONDELLO: See, I like the geopolitics.
DETROW: He was trying to get everybody out in a crowd. What are you talking about?
MONDELLO: Oh, yeah, innocent, innocent.
DETROW: Marc, you touched on this before. On one hand, "Jaws" is widely credited with creating the genre of the summer blockbuster. On the other hand, every single movie that has been inspired by "Jaws" seems to not take any of these lessons we're talking about - small, tight...
RIVERS: Suspense.
DETROW: ...You know, withholding its spectacle...
RIVERS: Yeah.
DETROW: It's "Sharknado."
MONDELLO: Well, wait, wait, wait. Yes and no. I mean, I think "Alien" was influenced by it, and that's - what? - seven people on a spaceship, right? It keeps it small.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALIEN")
IAN HOLM: (As Ash) You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
MONDELLO: So sometimes they do it, but you're right about blockbusters getting massive. Now they have to have 5,000 people running at...
RIVERS: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...You know, each other.
RIVERS: The whole world has to be at stake, and...
MONDELLO: Right.
RIVERS: ...Not like a beach. And, you know, even for its time, "Jaws" was not a big-budget movie. You know, I think I looked at a Business Insider article, and I adjusted for inflation. Its budget was around 64 million. The latest "Mission Impossible" is $400 million.
MONDELLO: Four-hundred million dollars.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: Like, it's ridiculous.
DETROW: Yeah.
RIVERS: So, you know, it's a testament to Spielberg doing a lot with a little.
MONDELLO: The lesson that Hollywood took from this is almost entirely an economic lesson.
RIVERS: Yes.
MONDELLO: They learned that you could open things in the summer, that all of those people being out of school was a good thing. I mean, when I was a teenager, this was not a big moviegoing time.
RIVERS: I remember - I read that folks like Pauline Kael would go on vacation during the summer because there was...
MONDELLO: Right. Right. In the summer...
RIVERS: ...Nothing good to see.
MONDELLO: ...'Cause there's nothing opening.
RIVERS: Yeah.
MONDELLO: And now, it's the time when I have to be here because...
RIVERS: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...You know, because all these movies are opening. So it changed that. It changed the dynamics of a season, and then it changed the way that they marketed things because - what you were talking about earlier about the blitzing of advertising - there were three major networks and Fox, which was sort of off on the side, and three networks, and they ran two dozen commercials, two dozen 30-second commercials...
RIVERS: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Each day for three days before that thing opened.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: (As narrator) There is a creature alive today which has survived millions of years of evolution - without change, without passion and without logic. It lives to kill.
MONDELLO: Everybody in the country had seen it. So of course 126 million people went to see it.
DETROW: That's Bob Mondello and Marc Rivers. Thanks so much to both of you.
MONDELLO: Thank you.
RIVERS: Thanks, Scott.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "END TITLE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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